The Glorious Necessity of Gates Text: Nehemiah 13:1-3
Introduction: The Sin of Being Squishy
We live in an age that has made a god out of the word "inclusive." In the mind of the modern man, and sadly, in the mind of the modern evangelical, the highest possible virtue is to have no boundaries, no walls, and no doctrinal or moral spine. To draw a line, to make a distinction, to say "this is in, and that is out" is to commit the only remaining cardinal sin: the sin of exclusion. Our generation wants a church with no walls, a gospel with no demands, and a God with no standards. They want a kingdom that is all welcome mat and no gate.
But the God of the Bible is a God who creates by separating. He separated the light from the darkness. He separated the waters above from the waters below. He separated the land from the sea. And He separated for Himself a people, a holy nation, a peculiar treasure. The entire logic of covenant, from Genesis to Revelation, is a logic of separation. God establishes a clear antithesis between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world, between the Church and the world. To be holy is to be set apart. Therefore, a church that refuses to separate is a church that refuses to be holy.
The events here in Nehemiah 13 are a sharp and necessary corrective to our modern sentimentalism. The people of God had just rebuilt the physical walls of Jerusalem. This was a monumental task, accomplished in the face of intense opposition. But Nehemiah understood that physical walls are useless if the spiritual walls are in rubble. A city can be fortified against an external enemy and still be conquered from within by compromise, syncretism, and disobedience. And so, after the dedication of the wall, the people gather for a public reading of the Word. And what they hear in that Word leads them to immediate, decisive, and what our age would call "intolerant" action. They hear the law, and they obey it. This is the pattern of all true reformation.
The Text
On that day they read from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and there was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, because they did not meet the sons of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the curse into a blessing. So when they heard the law, they separated all foreigners from Israel.
(Nehemiah 13:1-3 LSB)
The Authority of the Word Read (v. 1)
The reformation begins, as all true reformations must, with the public reading of the Word of God.
"On that day they read from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and there was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God," (Nehemiah 13:1)
Notice the setting. "On that day." This is not a casual, private Bible study. This is a corporate, public act. The Word of God is being read "in the hearing of the people." This establishes the principle that God's Word is not a collection of private suggestions for individual self-improvement. It is the constitution of the covenant community. It has public authority. It governs the life of the people together, as a people.
And as they read, they come across a specific law, found in Deuteronomy 23. This law forbids Ammonites and Moabites from entering "the assembly of God." This assembly, the qahal, is the formal, gathered congregation of the Lord's people. This is not a prohibition based on mere ethnicity or race. This is a matter of covenantal fidelity. The Bible is not xenophobic. Rahab the Canaanite and Ruth the Moabitess are heroes of the faith precisely because they forsook their pagan gods and their people and threw their lot in with Yahweh and His covenant people. They assimilated. The issue here is not with foreigners who convert, but with those who remain foreign in their loyalties while dwelling among God's people.
The Ammonites and Moabites were relatives of Israel, descendants of Lot. But they were also generational enemies who represented a persistent spiritual and physical threat. This law was a firewall, a protective boundary to maintain the holiness and integrity of the covenant community. God was teaching His people that fellowship has boundaries. The Church is a city with gates, not an open field.
The Reason for the Rule (v. 2)
Verse 2 gives the historical and theological reason for this separation. God is not arbitrary.
"because they did not meet the sons of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the curse into a blessing." (Nehemiah 13:2 LSB)
The charge is twofold. First, a sin of omission: they "did not meet the sons of Israel with bread and water." When Israel was on its wilderness journey, a vulnerable pilgrim people, their cousins the Ammonites and Moabites showed them not kindness, but hostility. They refused to provide basic sustenance. This was a violation of basic human decency, but more than that, it was an act of covenantal contempt.
But it gets worse. Second, they committed a sin of commission, and it was spiritual warfare. They "hired Balaam against them to curse them." When they couldn't defeat Israel with swords, they tried to defeat them with sorcery. They paid a prophet-for-hire to pronounce a divine curse upon God's chosen people. This reveals the depth of their hatred. It was not a mere border dispute; it was a religious war. They were actively seeking Israel's destruction by supernatural means.
And right here, in the middle of this law, is a glorious nugget of the gospel: "However, our God turned the curse into a blessing." This is the story of the Bible in one phrase. Men mean things for evil, but God means them for good. Balak and Balaam conspired to curse, but every time Balaam opened his mouth, the Spirit of God hijacked his tongue and a blessing came out. God is utterly sovereign over the intentions of wicked men and fallen angels. He takes the worst that the enemy can throw at His people and He weaves it into the tapestry of His triumphant purpose. The ultimate example of this, of course, is the cross. The enemies of God gathered to heap the ultimate curse upon the Son of God, nailing Him to a tree. And God took that very act of supreme curse and turned it into the supreme blessing of salvation for the entire world.
The Response of Decisive Obedience (v. 3)
The response of the people to the reading of the Word is the climax of the passage and the heart of the lesson for us.
"So when they heard the law, they separated all foreigners from Israel." (Nehemiah 13:3 LSB)
Look at the cause and effect. "So when they heard... they separated." There was no delay. There was no committee formed to study the cultural implications. There was no task force assembled to debate whether this law was still relevant. They heard the clear command of God, and they acted on it immediately. This is what it means to be a people under the Word. Hearing must lead to doing, or it is not true hearing at all.
The text says they "separated all foreigners from Israel." The Hebrew word here for "foreigners" is `ereb`, which means a "mixed multitude" or a "foreign element." This is the same word used in Exodus 12 to describe the non-Israelites who left Egypt with them. This was not a racist purge. This was an act of ecclesiastical purification. They were removing from their formal assembly those who were not committed to the covenant, those who were a source of spiritual compromise and pollution. They were restoring the Creator's distinction between the holy and the common.
This act would have been costly. There were likely business relationships, friendships, and perhaps even family ties involved. But their loyalty to God and His Word trumped all other loyalties. They understood that a holy community is a healthy community, and a healthy community is a strong community. They had just rebuilt the stone walls. Now they were rebuilding the spiritual walls. They were putting the gates back on the city of God.
The Church as a Gated Community
What does this ancient act of separation have to do with us, the Church of the New Covenant? Everything.
The principle still stands. The "assembly of God" is now the Church. And the Church is commanded to be separate from the world. Paul is crystal clear: "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?... Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord" (2 Corinthians 6:14, 17).
This is not a call for monastic withdrawal. We are to be in the world, but not of it. This separation is ecclesiastical and ethical. It means the church must maintain clear boundaries of doctrine and life. We must be clear on what the gospel is, and what it is not. We must be clear on what constitutes a Christian life, and what does not. This requires the loving, consistent, and courageous practice of church discipline. When a professing member of the assembly is living in unrepentant sin, he is acting like a spiritual Ammonite. He is bringing a foreign pollution into the camp. To refuse to address that sin for the sake of a squishy, sentimental "love" is not love at all. It is disobedience to God and cruelty to the sinner.
The modern church has invited the Ammonites and Moabites in, given them a seat on the worship team, and elected them to the elder board. We have welcomed those who deny the Word, who curse Christ's people with worldly ideologies, and who refuse to offer the bread and water of true fellowship. We have done this under the banner of "inclusion" and "being welcoming." But a hospital that is "welcoming" to viruses is not a hospital; it is a morgue. A church that is "inclusive" of unrepentant sin and heresy is not the assembly of God; it is a social club on the broad road to destruction.
Our task is to recover the practice of Nehemiah's day. We must open the Book of the Law in the hearing of the people. We must hear what it says about holiness, purity, and separation. And when we hear it, we must do it. We must lovingly, patiently, and firmly separate the church from the controlling standards of the world. This is not hatred. This is love. It is love for Christ and the purity of His Bride. It is love for the saints, protecting them from error. And it is love for the world, because only a church that is distinctively different from the world has anything of value to offer it.